The Pistol is the big thing

The defensive staff for the Baltimore Ravens certainly celebrated along with the rest of the organization after upsetting the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship on Sunday night.

mike duprez

The defensive staff for the Baltimore Ravens certainly celebrated along with the rest of the organization after upsetting the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship on Sunday night.On Monday morning, they were no doubt breaking down game film, looking at how the San Francisco 49ers run the read option out of the Pistol formation and not having as much fun. They got to see how the Packers keyed on Frank Gore only to see quarterback Colin Kaepernick decide at the last millisecond and take off. They got to see how the Falcons determined that Kaepernick was not going to beat them with his legs only to see Gore and LaMichael James get the handoffs and carve out big gains on inside runs. The fact that the 6-4, 230-pound Kaepernick is as swift as a defensive back and can throw lasers from the pocket only makes it worse — or better if you like the 49ers.The 49ers have run it so well lately that it's almost like having an extra player on offense."That's exactly right," said West Davidson coach Dale Barnes, who's had to scheme against plenty of spread offenses based on the read option.There's nothing new about the read option. It's been around the college and high school game for quite a while. Conventional thinking in the NFL was that the option wouldn't work because the quarterback would end up getting hurt.Thomasville, coached then by Benjie Brown, started running the shotgun spread in 2003 with Bryan Shore at quarterback. The Bulldogs had some success with it and then really got some mileage out of it when 6-5 E.J. Abrams-Ward was running it.Lately, it has taken off in the NFL with Cam Newton, Russell Wilson and Robert Griffin III.The pistol formation, created by University of Nevada coach Chris Ault, is different. In the shotgun spread, the quarterback lines up seven yards behind the quarterback with the running back beside him. In the pistol, the quarterback is closer to the line of scrimmage and the running back is behind him. Kaepernick flourished in it at Nevada.County football fans who see it on TV might notice that it looks familiar. When Chris Deal coached at Lexington, he used a formation called the Pistol-T in which a second running back is behind the quarterback."It's very similar," Barnes said.Lexington's version was more run-oriented and that makes sense because successful, sophisticated passing attacks are not the norm in high school football. The scheme really took flight when freshman running back Marquez Grayson was promoted to the varsity for the playoffs. The Yellow Jackets won three in a row in the playoffs before losing in the 2-A semifinals to Mountain Heritage. There was to be no encore as Deal departed for Patton after the season.Football is like a big chess match with coordinators on one side of the ball trying to counter what the other is doing. Kaepernick carved up the Packers for an NFL-record 181 yards rushing and the Falcons were prepared to stop him Sunday. But the initiative was still with the offense, Kaepernick read what the Falcons were doing and only made two runs."The Falcons had two people on him, one to the outside and one behind that guy," Barnes said. "That's why Gore got free."Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said in an interview recently that the NFL was cyclical and that defenses will catch up to it. That could happen in the Super Bowl — or it could be years down the road.Right now, the read option is the big thing. Who knows? Maybe Barnes could install it at West. Uh, no. Not going to happen. Three yards and a cloud of dust will do just fine for the Green Dragons.Mike Duprez can be reached at 249-3981, ext. 218 or mike.duprez@the-dispatch.com.

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